Poppy Z. Brite
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Poppy Z. Brite (born Melissa Ann Brite on May 25, 1967) is an American author born in New Orleans. Early in her career, she was best known for writing gothic and horror novels and short stories. Her trademarks have included using gay men as main characters, graphic sexual descriptions in the works, and an often wry treatment of gruesome events. Some of her better known novels are Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996); she has also released short fiction collections: Swamp Foetus (also published as Wormwood, 1993), Are You Loathsome Tonight? (also published as Self-Made Man, 1998), Wrong Things (with Caitlin R. Kiernan, 2001), and The Devil You Know (2003). She has also written a biography about singer Courtney Love (1996), which was officially "unauthorized" but is widely known to have been done at Love's suggestion and with her cooperation.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s she has largely moved away from horror fiction while still writing about gay (but more realistic) characters. Her critically acclaimed novels Liquor (2004), Prime (2005), and Soul Kitchen (forthcoming in 2006) are dark comedies set in the New Orleans restaurant world. (Brite has been in a committed relationship with a chef for 17 years.) Her short novel The Value of X (2002) and several stories in her most recent collection The Devil You Know revisit the characters from Liquor and chronicle the lives of the Stubbs family, a Catholic clan whose roots are sunk deep in the traditional culture of New Orleans. Brite plans to write at least two more novels in the Liquor series, Dead Shrimp Blues and Hurricane Stew.
In 2002-2003, a screenplay adaptation of Exquisite Corpse was co-written by Max Krueger and Robert St. Mary. The script was registered with the Writers' Guild of America. Krueger, St. Mary and Flo Speakman sought to produce Exquisite Corpse as an independent film to be shot on location in New Orleans, but the funding failed to materializeFangoria article on Exquisite Corpse film from 2003. http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=502 (Note: this film is no longer in the works, nor is the novel currently under option.). Brite has often stated that, while she will allow her work to be optioned for film under the right circumstances, she has little interest in movies and is not overly eager to see her work filmed.
Born a biological female, Brite has written and talked much about her gender dysphoria/gender identity issues. She identifies more as male than female but makes no attempt to dress or appear male and also does not expect to be referred to as "he"See Brite's LiveJournal, especially the [August 22, 2003 entry].. Brite is comfortable with the term "non-operative transsexual".
During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Brite at first opted to stay at home, but she eventually relocated 80 miles away to her mother's home in Mississippi. She continued to update her fans regarding the situation, including the unknown status of her house and pets, on her blogIvry, Bob. ["As storm raged, stalwart bloggers stayed at keyboards"]. The Standard Times. (August 31, 2005), and has since become one of the first 100,000 New Orleanians to begin repopulating the city.
A critical essay on Brite's fiction appears in The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004) by S. T. Joshi.
Bibliography
Novels and Novellas
- Lost Souls (1992)
- Drawing Blood (1993)
- Exquisite Corpse (1996)
- The Lazarus Heart (1998)
- Plastic Jesus (2000)
- The Value of X (2002)
- Liquor (2004)
- Triads (with Christa Faust - 2004)
- Prime (2005)
- Soul Kitchen (2006)
- D*U*C*K (novella - forthcoming in 2006)
- Wormwood (also published in limited edition and in the U.K. as "Swamp Foetus" - 1993)
- Are You Loathsome Tonight? (also published in the U.K. as "Self-Made Man" - 1998)
- Wrong Things (with Caitlin R. Kiernan - 2001)
- The Devil You Know (2003)
- R.I.P (1998)
- The Seed of Lost Souls (1999)
- Stay Awake (2000)
- Would You? (2000)
- Pansu (2001)
- Con Party at Hotel California (2002)
- The Feast of St. Rosalie (2003)
- Used Stories (2004)
- Crown of Thorns (2005)
- [[Courtney Love: The Real Story]] (1997)
- Guilty But Insane (essays - 2001)
Notes
Interviews
External links
French [Audio book (mp3)] of In Vermis Veritas, taken from Self-Made Man and translated into French by Nicolas Richard.
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